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Assessing the dynamical assumptions in Tsirelson inequality tests of nonclassicality in harmonic oscillators

Arush Garg*, Jonathan J. Halliwell†, and Taejas Venkataraman‡

  • *Contact author: ag2515@cam.ac.uk
  • †Contact author: j.halliwell@imperial.ac.uk
  • ‡Contact author: tv296@cam.ac.uk
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Phys. Rev. A 113, 052447 – Published 21 May, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/qb27-86s1

Abstract

Macrorealism posits that a system possesses definite properties at all times and that we can discover these properties, in principle, without disturbing the system's subsequent behavior. The Leggett-Garg inequalities are derived under these assumptions and are readily violated by standard quantum mechanics, thereby providing a scheme to test whether demonstrably macroscopic systems can exhibit quantum coherence. Unfortunately, Leggett-Garg tests suffer from the difficult to avoid clumsiness loophole: the difficulty of proving that sequential measurements have not inadvertently disturbed the system. The recently uncovered Tsirelson inequality is derived from the simple dynamical assumption of uniform precession, obeyed by many classical systems, and requires only single-time measurements. However, Tsirelson inequality violations could be explained by a macrorealistic system that merely breaks the dynamical assumption, rather than genuine quantum behavior. By carrying out a quantum-mechanical analysis of the Tsirelson inequality in the harmonic oscillator, we develop a protocol to rule out this possibility by assessing generalized conditions of uniform precession. We show that various measures of uniform precession, some of which are related to Leggett-Garg quantities, are satisfied well enough that the presence of quantum-mechanical interference terms must be implied. We derive several incidental mathematical results relating to violating states of Tsirelson's inequality, concerning dwell time, crossing number, and probability currents, and also consider a group-theoretic analysis of the Tsirelson operator.

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Phys. Rev. A 113, 052447– Published 21 May, 2026
  • Received 25 September 2025
  • Accepted 30 April 2026
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